What started off as a 2 year move to Barcelona, 5 years later has turned into a multi national move as we now head to Amsterdam, the Netherlands for our next adventure!

Friday, September 23, 2011

Not Everyday Can Be Sunshine and Roses...

I think that statement applies no matter where you live. You have good days and bad days no matter your location. But I think that when you live in a place where your daily life has lost the simplicity that you had at home (not that life at home is simple, mind you, but the daily tasks are just that, tasks and not challenges), it doesn't take all that much to trigger a bad day. Yesterday was my bad day.

I haven't had a bad emotional day here in quite some time so it was almost a good thing to have reality kicking my butt a little bit. Sometimes you need a bad day to make you appreciate the good in life and that really, I have very little to feel sorry for myself about.

Yesterday I missed home like I hadn't missed home in a long time, to the point where I ached inside and felt teary most of the day. I'm a believer in that time and distance makes the pain go away. Josh and I have been talking about home a lot lately, not for any particular reason. We've talked about the car I'll get when I go home (last year we rented a BMW 5 Series sedan for a long weekend and I told Josh it was my dream car if they would make it in a wagon... at the time they weren't but guess what, they are now... just not in the States), about the changes we need to make to our house, about some upgrades we need to do on our house on the cape. And of course about school for the kids. The final insult was that I had a portion of my blog printed into a book which arrived at Josh's work yesterday - it's the prequel to our arrival in BCN so it's filled with emotional entries about leaving. So home has been on my mind already and we still have a little less than 2 years here! And I think the fact that I did not overschedule myself this week with appointments, lunches, etc on top of work (which I tend to do, perhaps for a reason?) meant that I was home a lot this week... by myself... all week. There's nothing like lonliness to bring out the sadness in someone!

I'll always miss home no matter where I am, but I know that eventually I'll be back there. I stay in touch with my friends and my family but sometimes it's just not enough. I made a decision in August that I would not be going home this fall as I had last year. The flights were costly and we had just come off 8 straight weeks of travel which was not cheap. So I couldn't in good mind spend more money to go home by myself for yet another vacation. And with two trips home next year already in the works, I decided to forgo this one.

I will also admit to some frustration with our lack of visitors. Now let me preface that to say that I understand it is not cheap to come to Barcelona and that most of the people who would visit us have kids (though not all) and that adds to the cost. But that doesn't make it any less frustrating or sad for me to know that we have had so few visitors and literally none on the horizon for the coming year as of now. I've made three trips home so far... none have been cheap and all have been very stressful for me trying to get in visits with everyone amongst other things. I guess it was making me feel sad to feel that I could put myself out to everyone and yet very few had made that effort for me and my family. I know it's not realistic and it's a bit of a selfish view, but that's how I was feeling yesterday and if this blog is supposed to be about our true journey here, then I can't disregard those feelings.

At the same time of feeling resentful of those not visiting, I was also having regrets for not going home this fall. I tried to convince myself that if I could find a good flight (which actually I did, $500), this time I wouldn't stress myself out when I went home. And that I wouldn't overschedule myself to the point of being ill like my last 2 visits. And while trying to convince myself of this, I think I made it worse. Because it made me realize how much in limbo I am in my life. I don't feel as though I belong in a sense, but that I'm a visitor at home. I'm sure that will change when we make Attleboro our permanent home again, but for now, it's not. That feeling of limbo is not a great feeling...

So what did I do when I realized I was having a bad day? I worked on my holiday cards. The holidays, my FAVORITE time at home. How stupid am I?? I was looking thru pictures of the summer to use for my cards and of course we were home for almost 3 weeks of the summer. In front of my face are all the people I've missed so much and all of the kids friends. It made me ache with a need to go home. But then I end up once again in limbo because I really do like it here and the travel bug has most definitely bitten me. Not to mention the fact that the challenges I'm presented with here are so different than what I had at home and I like that.

But I digress...this entry isn't about why I like Barcelona and trying to defend that feeling. It's about being honest about the fact that while I do like it here and I'm comfortable here, there will always be a draw to home and to my friends and family there. And that somedays, it's worse than others. There are many days where I don't give more than 2 minutes thought to home and others where it overwhelms me, like yesterday.

Today is a new day and I'm feeling refreshed and back to "normal" whatever that is. The La Merce festival is this weekend and it's one of my favorites here. I'm looking forward to late dinner with my family, a big treat for the kids, and then fireworks tonight. Home is still there, I still miss it and everything about it, but for now, I will make the best of my time here. And I will take the time to recognize that while the weather in Barcelona is 80 degrees and sunny right now, it does rain sometimes...